Black Arts

by Faith Hunter

  “Nope,” I said again.

  “So I made a video of them, with a time stamp.” He thumbed through his phone and pulled up a video. “Here. They’re breathing but asleep. Less than two hours ago. It’ll be at least eight more hours before they wake enough to be coherent.”

  “And what did Leo find?” I asked sweetly.

  “Nothing you didn’t know. That Adrianna is in a lot of hot water. She got them blood-drunk, bound them, fed them the lie that Leo wanted you dead, and ordered the attack on you. She led it herself. Leo called her in, but she hasn’t shown.”

  “Oh boy. Adrianna is rebelling against her sworn master of the city, in the absence of her clan blood-master.” This was like a soap opera, vamp-style. Not bothering to hide my delight, I said, “What does Grégoire think about all this?”

  “Not funny. He’s pissed that Leo hasn’t found her. Scuttlebutt says he’s leaving Atlanta and coming home to deal with her.”

  I chuckled. “Out-of-town guests, his heir missing employees, a missing witch in his town, and open rebellion in his ranks, the European Council on the warpath, and his second most powerful clan in the hands of Adrianna, a psycho Celt with fangs. Yeah. Leo’s not happy.”

  “Keep that laughter to yourself,” Wrassler advised. “Leo’s sent his Mercy Blade to find Adrianna.”

  “Ah.” And that said it all. My smiled faded. Vamp law in the United States was not yet the same as human law, with Leo having declared them to be independent, the way tribal Americans were independent. Sorta. So far, the political and justice systems seemed happy with that, because incorporating the superstrong, human-blood-drinking, daylight-sensitive vamps and the full-moon-shifting weres into the human legal system meant very expensive changes to police departments, jails, and prisons. For vamps, the Mercy Blades took the place of cops, acting under the direction of the vampire to whom they were sworn. Gee DiMercy had several duties, and one was to give the mercy stroke of death to vampires who were insane, but who were still part of a master’s clan or house. The fact that Gee DiMercy had been sent after Adrianna meant that she had been given a death sentence by her master.

  My job as a rogue-vamp hunter was a bit different. I usually tracked down the unaffiliated insane vamps and killed them. Or I had until I’d taken the job from Leo and gotten my Beast bound. Dumb move, that.

  I let all the info shuffle through my mind. I didn’t like Adrianna. She was totally psychotic. She had attacked my house when my godchildren were inside. She wanted me dead. I didn’t necessarily want her dead, just . . . contained. Maybe in a silver cage. Not that I had any say in the matter.

  I had a truly panic-worthy thought. Was Adrianna involved with Molly’s disappearance? Terror rose in me, but I shoved it down, hard. Fear wouldn’t help Mol. I needed to save the energy for when I found her, for the fight to get her free. I brought myself back to the concerns at hand.

  Wrassler handed me his cell and I studied the video. The time stamp was just what he’d said—assuming no one had tampered with the electronics. The humans were asleep on twin beds, breathing smoothly. Both were fully clothed, if a little pale. One was drooling, the other was smiling. Blood-drunk for real. “Okay. Whatever. Let’s go over the final security arrangements. Who’s on electronic monitoring?”

  “Angel Tit.”

  The rest was boring logistics.

  • • •

  Ninety minutes before the festivities, Eli arrived and sent my clothes to the ladies’ locker room where I had showered before. He was already dressed in night camo, and together we did a final run-through of the house and the grounds. Everything was in place. Derek and his men had shown up at the same time as NOPD’s bomb sniffer dog, and Eli and the former Marines had secured the premises. It wasn’t exactly a lockdown, but it was close. Every car would pull through the gate out back, pause for the bomb-sniffing dog—who was a cute Jack Russell, black Lab mix—then motor up, beneath the little drive-through-roofed area that Wrassler called a port kashar, but spelled it porte cochere on my notes. French, probably. The passengers would get out and receive a good crotch-sniffing by the dog. Well, not really, but I could hope. The mental image of a two-hundred-year-old vamp with a dog nose in his crotch was giggle-worthy, but not something I could share under the circumstances.

  And then the guests would be escorted to the elevator and the ballroom, where Wrassler and I would be. Not that planning and security measures would make the ballroom safe. The last big par-tay had ended in werewolves shape-changing and attacking through the stained glass windows. It had been a bloody mess. At least this time Leo hadn’t invited the press to the event.

  Before changing clothes, I checked the ballroom one last time. It was fancy, a sort of colonial Moorish mix, with pointed arches and domed ceilings, held up with fluted gilt-painted columns. There were stained glass insets in some domes, illuminated by artificial lights.

  The floor was pink marble and the matching rugs were so rich my feet sank into them. Narrow, rectangular linen-draped tables were lined up in the middle of the room, and side chairs had been placed along the walls, all expensive museum-quality furniture. Also along the walls were curio cabinets filled with objets d’art, historical and archaeological items donated by vamps, and a bunch of macabre stuff. My favorites were the handmade items of tribal life from Africa, South America, and the U.S.: stone hammers, pottery that had been shaped without a potter’s wheel and fired in open fires, spear points, and knapped weapons—not that I had time tonight to examine them.

  Bouquets of aromatic flowers were everywhere, some standing tall in vases with water and some in little pots. The honey fragrance of sweet alyssum and the more intense scent of stock drifted in the air. The flower color scheme was a little of everything, pink, purple, white, and yellow, very springlike.

  On the serving tables were gold-plated serving ware and utensils, nothing silver to harm the vamps. Platters for the humans were laden with cheeses, fish, meats, and a carved watermelon full of tropical fruit. A cute blood-servant bartender dressed in black tux pants and a black halter top was icing drinks at the alcohol bar and a blood-servant in similar garb, but far skimpier, stood guard in front of the blood bar, a small alcove off the main room. All the servers were loyal blood-servants, not hired, though Leo’s usual catering service had provided and set up the food.

  Satisfied, I went to the elevator and down to the locker room assigned for me to change clothes. My locker was on the end, in the corner, a tall, narrow one, from floor to ceiling, my name on the front, Jane Yellowrock, and beneath it, the word Enforcer. I opened the locker, to see shelves at the top, and hanging space in the middle with a shoe space at the bottom. But my slacks and shirt weren’t there. Instead there was a designer dress on a padded satin hanger. I shoulda known. Leo had a thing about dressing me. He said it was part of my job description. I thought it was more that he liked being in control.

  I didn’t argue, and instead lifted out the dress and inspected it. It was made of a metallic-looking fabric that felt like silk, the bodice in an old-rose-gold color and the sleeves in a pewter-colored fabric. The flaring skirt was rose gold too, with bands of pewter sewn in at the waist, splaying down the sides, and at the hem. The dress was so soft it slithered through my fingers.

  I wanted to find fault with the dress, but there were openings at the sides where pewter fabric met gold, slits for weapons, with holsters and sheaths built in for both my guns and my blades. I thought the colors would make me look washed out, but when I held the dress up to me and inspected myself in the mirror, it brought out the golden hues of my skin. It looked great, even without makeup. Dang Leo. The only flaw was that the dress was one of those stupid side-zippered things.

  “Okay. I can do this.” I stripped to my underwear and slipped the dress over my head. It was tight, binding one elbow to my side, then my chin to my chest. Maybe it was part snake. I was struggling to get it on when the door opened and Adelaide waltzed into the room. I say waltzed because her dress mo
ved as if she were dancing and she looked like a million bucks. Dressed in a floor-length dress of pale gold cloth, a shimmery color to match her hair, and wearing jewels that looked like the real thing, she was elegant and perfect, and I was disheveled and off balance, one arm in a sleeve, one arm and my head through the open zipper, the dress off to the side.

  “Do not laugh,” I ordered.

  But she did. It was a sympathetic laugh, I had to give her that, even as she went to work on straightening the dress and getting my arm in the proper hole and pulling the zipper tight, which made me catch my breath. The dress was totally formfitting and I wasn’t sure that breathing was part of the form. “Shoes?” she asked, and I pointed to my new boots and my dancing shoes. “Serviceable,” she said, “but not elegant. And even the new boots won’t do for tonight and with this outfit,” she said with a cheeky grin.

  “You like my boots?” I asked.

  “Sugar, I picked those babies out, though I admit that Leo had to make the final choice. I’ll see about ordering you a more dressy pair of dancing shoes. Perhaps several pairs in different shades. Your gorget?”

  “My who? Gor-jay?”

  Del spelled it for me. “A gorget is a collar made of chain mail. I believe that Leo had one made for you out of silver-plated titanium.”

  I opened one of the few things that had made it from my house to the locker room—the black velvet box that held my throat protectors—and latched the titanium chain mail throat and chest armament over my neck. The undergorget was practical: the titanium would stop a knife, some clumsy sword strokes, and fangs. I latched the dressier gold link gorget over it, the one with the citrines and other gems. The set had been a present from Leo to replace the ugly but more functional one lost in his service. I had known from the beginning that it was too expensive for me to accept, but it was beautiful and I hadn’t been able to say no to the shiny gifts, a reaction that was way too girly for me. The layering was perfect with the fabric. The set also fit perfectly into the low neckline of the dress.

  “I see why the gown was made in this fabric—to match that stunning, layered gorget,” Del said. “There is no reason why a woman’s weapons should be ugly.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling stupid that I liked the effect so much. I lifted a hand and touched the gold gems, one that was close to the color of Beast’s eyes when they glowed through mine. “It’s . . . sparkly.”

  Del kept her face bland, but I could smell her amusement. “Yes. So it is. Sparkly. All right, let me help you with your offensive weapons.”

  “None of my weapons are offensive. Most are kinda pretty.”

  Del chuckled dutifully and corrected, “So they are. Weapons for offense?”

  “Yeah. I got ’em.” I weaponed up through the little slits in the dress and strapped on the blades and the Walther .380 beneath the skirt. It wasn’t as powerful as a nine-millimeter, but it was the best weapon when faced with potential collateral damage—humans in crowded situations. Last, I added the small box for com equipment beneath the back waistline, pulled the ear wire and mic up, and hooked them in place. There were two main channels on the system, one for blood-servant security and one for my guys. The third channel was a private one, directly from Angel Tit to me. I checked the channels, hearing chatter on two and hearing Angel talking to someone in the background on the third. Satisfied, I looked at myself in the mirror, expecting to be wowed, but I wasn’t. I felt a bit like Cinderella in a before shot. Something was all wrong.

  “Now, sit,” Del said. “Your hair and your makeup need a bit of attention.”

  I sat and she went to work on me. When she was done, my braids had been rewrapped in the thick bun and the stakes had been stuck through it in a decorative fashion, not all out like a sunburst, but clustered, according to type. Wood stakes were placed with the rounded handle down, near my left shoulder; silver ones were handle-down near my right shoulder. It was an interesting way to wear them. I was wearing my trademark red lipstick, altered just a bit with a faint pink tint, some sort of smoky and gold eyeliner, a bronze blush, some shimmery, gold-flecked powder, and black mascara. I looked good, even if the neckline seemed way too low. In the three-inch heels, Del and I were of a height; standing side by side in the mirror, we looked great together, Adelaide like an angel, and me like an angel partially fallen.

  “We’ll do, I think. Let’s get to work,” Del said.

  • • •

  Fashionably late, the established vamp clans began arriving, in order of importance. Once upon a time and not so long ago, there had been eight vamp clans. Now there were four: Laurent, Bouvier, Arceneau, and Pellissier at the top.

  At the bottom of the pecking order, Clan Laurent was first to arrive, the clan name called out over the speakers. Bettina, clan master, entered alone, the petite woman looking like a Greek or Latin model, full of curves. Once she had been so sensual that lust wafted off her like steam above a volcano. Now she was colder, reserved, but also looked more comfortable in her new clan blood-master status. Meeting her at the door and extending his arm was Edmund Hartley, the former clan master of Laurent. Bettina looked happy to see the man she had defeated to become clan blood-master, and they bent heads together. It had to be weird to attend society functions with the enemies you fought and subdued and drank from, but with vamps, everything was weird.

  Her heir and two other vamps followed her, their blood-servants to either side and behind them. The reek of vamp swept in and was pushed through the room on the air currents, the usual dried herbs and fresh blood, but with the sweet, fresh, spring bouquets, the funeral stink wasn’t as potent as usual.

  Arceneau was announced next, and this one was the one I wanted to see, with neither Grégoire nor Dominique in town and Adrianna on the lam. The vamp was one I recognized but who was way down in the clan hierarchy, a fairly young vamp, indecisive and tentative, with preylike social skills, meaning that she was way down the hierarchy. She smelled faintly bitter with anxiety, like camphor and mint. I didn’t remember her name, and the announcer hadn’t bothered to share it.

  Inside me, Beast was prowling, sensing the uncertainty the vamp brought into the room, the nervous tension. Her tail tip twitched slightly, side to side, as she paced. I breathed deeply and slowly to let her relax, but felt her staring through my eyes. From the looks I was getting from vamps and humans, they were glowing gold.

  “Clan Bouvier,” the announcer said. The clans comasters Innara and Jena entered together. They were tiny, one blond and one darker haired, five foot two in matching shoes, and their dresses were two shades of red, one ruby and one dark fuchsia. The girls were mind-joined anamchara, fully loyal to Leo, and though they looked cute, they were deadly. I’d seen them fight, and savage was a good descriptive term. Roland, their clan heir, stood behind them, dressed in a black tux, looking deadly and cold. Other clan members and their blood-servants moved out around them.

  The stink of vamp was now so strong I wanted to sneeze, and pressed on my nose to stop it as I talked into my mic. “Everyone in, except Clan Pellissier, who are secluded with Leo upstairs. We have ten minutes before the guests start arriving.”

  In the ornate ballroom, all the humans went immediately for food and alcohol, some vamps slipping into the small alcove for a blood snack. Leo had approved the blood bar. I didn’t like the practice, but I knew there were no weapons stashed in the curtained nooks, and really, what could I say anyway? The humans wanted the blood-servant relationship. I took the time to grab a bottle of water and walk the perimeter of the ballroom, hydrating.

  • • •

  The first guests to arrive were cops. “Special Agent Richard LaFleur of the Federal Psychometry Law Enforcement Department and Detective Jodi Richoux, New Orleans Police Department,” the voice announced. Rick’s tux fit him like his own skin, or his own pelt, black and touchable. On his arm walked Jodi, wearing a long dark chocolate brown dress in some kind of gauzy material that flowed around like veils. She looked good and she knew i
t. I was betting the flowing skirts hid her service weapons and a backup. I had left word that law enforcement was permitted to have guns on premises.

  The two had a good working relationship, from the time Rick worked in NOPD, and, like good partners, they immediately split up and started working the room, meeting people and checking out my security measures.

  Rick made it over to me faster than I thought possible, considering his casual saunter. He didn’t put an arm around me, but he did ogle my cleavage, with an appreciative grin. “Nice dress, babe. But I bet you look even better out of it.” I tried to force down an instant flush, but it rose anyway, settling deep in my belly. Without waiting for a reply, he chuckled and moved on past, to greet a vamp just walking out of the blood bar.

  “Dang,” I mumbled under my breath.

  Through the overhead speaker, stringed instruments started playing. I listened to the com chatter, hearing that the next guests had begun to arrive.

  And then something changed. A voice on the full-member-security channel stopped speaking midsentence, and didn’t start speaking again. I saw two of Derek’s men in the hallway adjust their headphones and look around, their bodies suddenly hyperalert, so it wasn’t my unit. I tapped my mic. “Angel, security cameras. Do you see anything odd? Someone not where they’re supposed to be? Doing something weird? Lying down like they just passed out?”

  “Sound off,” Angel commanded. The regular service chatter was cut and a tense silence lay over the security channel. One by one, Derek’s people checked in, their words preceded and followed by tiny clicks of the com system.

  “T. Jolly Green Giant,” the first said. “All is a go. Front entrance is clear.”

  “T. Sweaty Bollock. All is a go.”

  “T. Antifreeze. I’m good. Back entrance is clear and shut down.” The T stood for Tequila. Derek named all his groups of men after drinks.